What's Up With Apple: Just Wait 'til Next Year, Going to Court in Russia, and More

Technology

Published: December 6, 2021 7:45 am

The pixels hadn’t even stopped glowing after Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) announced its new products in September before speculation and rumors about what the company would bring to the table in 2022. Partly that was due to relatively modest upgrades to the iPhone, the product that accounts for around half of Apple’s annual sales.

Next year is expected to be quite different. In his weekly Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman goes through a long story about how much trouble he and others went through to receive the wireless carriers’ rebates on new iPhones. It’s not unlike dealing with an insurance company over what is covered and what is not.

In the subscriber-only version of the newsletter, Gurman offers a long list of what he expects Apple to bring to the party in 2022:

A new iPad Pro with wireless charging
A revamped, high-end iMac with Apple’s own CPU
An iPhone SE with 5G capability
New AirPods Pro
The “biggest ever” revamping of the MacBook Air to include Apple’s next-generation M2 CPU and a new design
Other new Macs, all with Apple CPUs
An iPhone 14
Three new Apple Watches, including a less expensive Apple Watch SE and a ruggedized version
Finally, a mixed reality headset with both augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) capability

Gurman also goes into some detail about what features might be included with the coming headset. He expects Apple to target gaming, media consumption and communication. The communications functions could include a “VR FaceTime-like experience to be the new-age Zoom.” Shares of Zoom Video Communications stock tanked after its quarterly report was released late last month, and the stock dropped 4% last Friday and was down more than 1.5% in Monday’s premarket trading.

Apple has decided to take its fight with Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) to court. According to a report at RT, Apple wants a Russian court to review a FAS ruling that would force Apple “to allow app developers to tell customers about alternative payment options when using its App Store platform.”

The FAS delivered its ruling on the issue in August and gave Apple until September 30 to comply. When Apple apparently failed to do so, the FAS began in October taking action to force Apple’s compliance.

Apple could be fined a percentage of its Russian revenue if the court rules against the company. In April of this year, the FAS fined Apple $12 million for anti-competitive practices in a case involving Russian security developer Kaspersky Labs.

Briefly noted:

The Wall Street Journal’s Christopher Mims also had a story on Saturday about Apple’s expected headset that offers more detail on the product and on the market.

Tom’s Guide, a website specializing in new hardware, also weighed in on Sunday with a look at what we can expect from Apple in 2022. This story also comments on the Apple Car and a foldable phone dubbed the iPhone Flip.